Archive for April 2004

Well, that must be about my quota of embarrassment used up for a year and a day or so. I was just in Spar paying for some electricity for Sam and when it gets to my turn in the queue I feel something under my foot and realize that I’m standing on a small bundle of weed in Clingfilm. I say small but it was probably about a quarter. I assume its my lucky day but just to make sure I do a sly recce of the shop in case there’s someone behind me staring at the floor with a look of concern on their face. There isn’t, so I casually genuflect and snaffle up the dope. Result! Then, as I leave the shop I see a geezer staring at the floor with a look of concern on his face. What’s more, I vaguely know the chap as a friend of a friend kind of thing, so this is where it all gets a bit morally murky. I instantly realize that the decent thing to do would be to wait until he comes out again and then ask him if he’s lost something, as its obviously fucking him that has, but instead I sort of do a bit of ambiguous lingering outside the shop for about ten seconds, including several half-turns and inconsequential attempts at motion in one direction or another, and then, paralysed by indecision and the non-appearance of matey to make my mind up for me, I just walk off towards home. Then I start to feel very guilty. Even though it would be a little strange to go back and ask a relative stranger whether they’d mislaid any illegal drugs, I know full well in my heart that that is what I ought to be doing. However, I don’t. I walk on, sweating extra sweat in the spring heat. And then I hear: “Excuse me! Excuse me!” behind me. Fuck. Now, what I ought to do here is say something like “Don’t worry mate, I know what you’re after” or wait until he’s said his little bit and then say “Oh, it was yours was it?” but of course I know exactly what is going on, and in my guilty discomfort I just stand there and wait for him to ask me in a very roundabout way whether I’d seen any lost weed in Spar. Then I let out a deep breath, hand over the dope, and say something incredibly meaningless in a very nervous voice that basically translates as “I’m sorry I stole your marijuana. I wish I hadn’t been caught out. I feel bad.” Matey just seems grateful to be reunited with his herb, and also somewhat in tune with how I’m feeling, as he’s very good about it, but I still feel covered in shame. When I get home I give Sam the whole story about my unmasking as a drug rat, and then head up here to my PC where I find a message from my man Axwax on Soulseek thanking me for “saving” his weed! It turns out the other dude was delivering it to this friend of mine, who is a very solid dude. Evidently the Gods are toying with Pete Um again.

Please take moment to read this e-mail! I had a close look at your web site and it seems like the band is in for a serious ride in the music business. Therefore we are here to offer more alternative means to get heard and expand your promo material. We are setting out a PROMOTIONAL month of April and charging a fee of Â£120 (Â£200 normal rate) for the full recording of your show (16 Trks on to Pro Tools) with further possibilities of performing vocal overdubs at Ferry Lane Studios.

I should point out that, despite the fact that his email makes it abundantly clear that he’s joking; his so-called April Fool arrived on March 18th.

Talking of fools and fooling – yesterday in Arjuna we were selling little bags of Organic Air for Â£1.55. No one had bought any (or even got the joke) by midday so we had to reduce them. At the end of the day we should have given them to the homeless but perhaps that would have seemed cruel.

Talking of total bollocks:

When she was at school, my friend George told 3 little fibs to make herself sound more interesting.

Fib a) that actually she was from Wales. Fib b) that actually her name was Georgina Louise Fib c) that her dad actually sang the theme to Champion The Wonder Horse.

From now on I will fraudulently attempt to pass off these 3 lies as my own. Please address me as Peter Louise henceforth.

Hey, it seems to work for Susan. Such a shame about Retro Electro though, which didn’t seem to work at all this time, so the Boy Sue shot it like a lame gelding in mascara. I blame:

a) The venue-monkeys, who you sort of suspected were taking part in some kind of Channel 4 job-swap docu-soap. Plus The Kambar is the drabbest place on earth. You could never quite shake the feeling that it was actually closed. b) The punters, i.e. you cunts. Place might as well have been bloody closed. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have gone there and paid good money myself. You had to force yourself to DJ there. c) The Retro Electro posse ourselves. Because you can’t just go around blaming everybody else.

Oh yeah. You know the bloke I hit with the rudder at the Sandpaper Sessions? He emailed me to tell me that he wasn’t offended that I “FUCK YOU!”‘d him. All he actually said was “I don’t like Goats”, when I introduced Goat, which is hardly the most extreme prejudice in the world, although some of my goat friends might disagree.

Goats attacked me once actually, when I worked at the Donkey Sanctuary (I haven’t had many jobs, but I’ve sure had some stupid ones). I had to climb over a stile into a very muddy and very slippery field with a big sack of carrots on my shoulder, and since goats basically do what they like they all started jumping up on me and destabilizing me with their hooves and I went over and all I could see was mud and bits of rucking goats and then quickly I scrambled up and told them all to FUCK OFF or they’d get none. They usually got the guy with the mental age of 5 (who looked like Herman Munster with Dennis Healy’s eyebrows) who’d been on Â£17 pound a week since the early 80’s to do that job. He used to call everybody either granddad or grandma, depending on their sex, and if you stood too near him for too long he’d pat your head and say “nice cat, nice cat”. Roy, that was his name. Man, I could tell you some stories about that place. Ask me sometime and I will.